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O'Sensei • Hiroshi Isoyama Shihan • Steven Seagal Shihan • Gozo Shioda Shihan • Sokaku Takeda
Aikido’s
founder, Morihei Ueshiba (O’Sensei), was born in
Japan on December 14th, 1883. As a
boy, he often saw local thugs beat up his father
for political reasons. Early on he decided to
make himself strong so that he could take
revenge. He devoted himself to hard physical
conditioning and eventually to the practice of
martial arts, receiving certificates of mastery
in several styles of jujitsu, fencing, and spear
fighting. Despite his impressive and awesome
physical and martial arts abilities, he felt a
great emptiness within him. He began delving
into religions in the hopes of finding a deeper
significance to life, all the while he continued
to pursue his studies of budo (martial arts).
By combing his martial arts with his religions
and political ideologies, he created the modern
art known today as “Aikido”. It was not until
1942 that O’Sensei decided upon the name
“Aikido”. Prior to this he called his martial
art “Aikibudo” and “Aikinomichi”.
On the technical side, Aikido is
rooted in several styles of jujitsu, in
particular Daitoryu Jujitsu, as well as sword
and spear fighting arts. This is over
simplifying somewhat, it is safe to say that
Aikido utilizes joint locks, throws, and strikes
from jujitsu and combines them with body
movements based on the sword and spear.
However, you must realize that many Aikido
techniques are the result of O’Sensei’s own
creative innovation.
O’Sensei began to realize that true Budo
needed a spiritual aspect to make a more
complete balance. He began the unification of
all humanity in a single “heavenly kingdom on
earth” where all religions could be united
under one banner. It is impossible to
sufficiently understand and comprehend many of
O’Sensei’s writings and sayings without keeping
the religious aspect firmly in mind.
During his lifetime O’Sensei taught many
different variations of Aikido at various times
in his life.
Nevertheless, Aikido was always first and
foremost a combative art that had to work in
street situations.
Despite what many people think or claim, there
is no real unified philosophy of Aikido. What
there is, instead, is each individual
interpretation of the religious, ethical, and
metaphysical beliefs, which are more or less
shared in part by all Aikidoists. This is
generally transmitted by word of mouth or found
in some scattered publication about Aikido.
A few examples are:
·“Aikido
is not a way to fight with or defeat your
enemies."
"It is a way to reconcile the world and make
all human beings one family.”
·“The
essence of Aikido is the cultivation of KI.”
·"The
secret of Aikido is to become one with the
universe."
When all is said and done we can identify at
least two fundamental truths: 1.) Aikido is an
attempt to a peaceful resolution of conflict
whenever possible; 2.) Aikido is one’s
commitment to self-improvement through Aikido
training.
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